


Two Stones Trying to Float on Water

by paperstorm



Series: Somewhere In Brooklyn [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Tower, Brooklyn, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Fluff, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 21:32:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18646498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: Once the door is locked and the curtains are drawn and they're safe in their own little world where the outside rules don’t apply, Bucky will flip on the radio and pull Steve into his arms in the middle of the kitchen floor. He’ll take Steve’s hand and wrap his other arm tight around Steve’s waist, holding him close and swaying with him, singing along in a low, soft voice to whatever love song is playing.





	Two Stones Trying to Float on Water

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of a companion piece to [Vox Populi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17216726), in which I mention in passing Steve and Bucky dancing in kitchens and it was (lovingly) demanded I flesh that idea out a little more. It isn't necessary to read that one first (although of course I'd love if you did!)
> 
> Title is from the song Two Stones by Walking On Cars.
> 
> The song mentioned in the fic is How Deep Is The Ocean, originally by Irving Berlin.

**1938**  
   
“You have a nice time?” Steve asks.  
   
He startles Bucky. Steve is sitting in their one armchair, in the corner of the room with the lights off. Bucky was trying to sneak back in without waking him up, closing the door slowly to avoid the creaks of the rusty hinges and padding in his socks across the scuffed up wooden floor.  
   
“Fuck, Steve,” he breathes. He fumbles along the wall for the light switch, flicking it and flooding the room with a yellow glow that makes them both squint. “What are you doing there?”  
   
Steve shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d wait for you.”  
   
“Lurking in the dark?” Bucky raises an eyebrow. He thinks he’s in trouble, Steve can tell. Bucky always goes on the defensive the moment he sniffs a hint of Steve being mad at him.  
   
Steve isn’t mad, though. Not really.  
   
“I asked if you wanted to go,” Bucky points out.  
   
“And I said no,” Steve agrees. “You can relax, I’m not pissed.”  
   
“Then why were you waiting for me in the dark?” Bucky crosses his arms over his chest, hip jutted out and eyebrow raised. If he looked at his mother like that, she’d smack him in the face. Twice, probably, once for the attitude and once for the insolence.  
   
“Just couldn’t sleep,” Steve says again. It is the truth, it’s just not all of it.  _Half-truths are the same as lies_ , his own mother would have chastised him, but she’s gone now, so Steve can half-truth all he wants and there’s no one but Bucky to tell him off for it.  
   
“Sure.” Bucky looks at him a moment longer, and then sighs like he’s frustrated and heads down the hall toward the bathroom. After a moment Steve hears the water running.  
   
He gets up and goes into the kitchen. Opening the fridge is a thing to occupy him, even though he isn’t hungry so he just stares at its meager contents and then closes it again so as not to waste electricity. Their bills are high enough already, and the brink of bankruptcy is their normal but that doesn’t mean Steve isn’t constantly stressed about it. Especially since so many of their problems are his fault. Every couple months when he gets really sick and has to miss a week’s worth of paychecks, and Bucky has to work overtime just to keep them afloat, Steve gets into blaming himself and wondering if Bucky would be better off if they’d never met. Bucky usually has to talk him down off that ledge. He’s good at it, now. Practiced.   
   
Usually, when Bucky goes out dancing, Steve goes with him. It isn’t his favorite thing to do in the world, but he doesn’t hate it. He’s often dragged along as a quarter of some ill-conceived double date, Bucky with a rosy-cheeked beauty and Steve saddled with some unlucky friend who is no happier about being stuck with him than he is with her. He tries to be friendly, make conversation, ask her to dance. Sometimes they let him lead them out onto the floor to fumble his way clumsily through a foxtrot. He usually steps on their feet. Sometimes they ditch him before he can even ask, spotting a taller, broader, handsomer man across the room and making a bee-line away from Steve. Always, absolutely without fail, he begins the night watching his date staring wistfully out towards the dancefloor, watching her friend spinning and laughing with Bucky. He doesn’t think he’s ever been out as part of a foursome that didn’t start with his girl out of sorts because her friend snagged Bucky and she didn’t.  
   
Tonight, he hadn’t gone. Bucky had promised it would be fun, like he always does, and usually Steve pretends he believes it. It is a sight, watching Bucky dance. He’s so bright-eyed and sparkly when the music is loud and quick and the steps are quicker, smiling that big, full-faced smile and laughing as he dips a date nearly to the floor. He’s beautiful when he’s happy, like a sunrise or a glimmering rainbow after a summer storm. And he never goes home with them. Not anymore, not since things changed after Steve lost his mother. Bucky sees them safely home, usually kisses their cheeks and promises they’ll do it again another time, and then walks with Steve back to their small apartment. More often than not, once the door is locked and the curtains are drawn and they're safe in their own little world where the outside rules don’t apply, Bucky will flip on the radio and pull Steve into his arms in the middle of the kitchen floor. He’ll take Steve’s hand and wrap his other arm tight around Steve’s waist, holding him close and swaying with him, singing along in a low, soft voice to whatever love song is playing. He doesn’t always know the words, or have the tune just right, but he hums into Steve’s ear and sends shivers down his spine.  
   
“One day,” he always promises, “we’ll have this out there, like everyone else. I’ll kiss you in the middle of a crowded street and no one will have two words to say about it. You’ll see.”  
   
Steve always nods, and sways, but never believes him. He suspects Bucky doesn’t believe it either, that’s it’s just a wish he’s hoping against hope might materialize into reality if he says it often enough. Steve knows what gets done to people like them, when they get found out. He can’t see a path that leads anywhere else, if they were to ever hold hands outside the sanctuary of their fourth-floor tenement walk-up.  
   
Tonight, Steve just hadn’t felt up to it. A few days ago he’d gone down to the docks to bring Bucky his packed lunch, because he’d forgotten it on the kitchen counter. Bucky’s back had been to Steve as he approached, lounging on some crates in a circle of coworkers, and he’d been animatedly telling them about a wild night he had with some nameless broad. The mouth on her, and the things she’d let him do, and the crucifix on the wall above that kept knocking into the wallpaper as they rocked the bed. Steve knows it was made up. He knows Bucky gets questions a lot, because he’s young and good looking and there are always girls all over him, yet he lives with Steve and is never seriously dating anyone. When it happens, Bucky has to tell stories. To keep up appearances; to keep them  _safe_. Steve knows that. It still hurt to hear it. After that, he couldn’t seem to bring himself to put on a clean shirt and head off to a dancing hall just to sit with a girl who didn’t want to be with him and watch Bucky shimmy with a soft, curvy body in a way he never can with Steve.  
   
The water shuts off, and Steve waits. He leans against the sink, pushing his hair back over his head, worried he’d hurt Bucky’s feelings and suddenly feeling lower than dirt about it. It isn’t Bucky’s fault they have to hide. It isn’t Bucky’s fault he loves dancing and he can’t do it in public with Steve. It isn’t Bucky’s fault Steve had decided to sit at home sulking tonight instead of going with him.  
   
He comes back into the kitchen, striped shorts and an old, thin t-shirt. His hair is damp, combed back off his face. It won’t dry like that without pomade, it a few minutes the air will get to it and it’ll end up fluffy and curled at the ends. Steve loves Bucky’s curls, wishes he wouldn’t smooth them out with oil as often as he does.  
   
“Still sore at me?” Bucky asks, warily, not coming completely into the room like he’s thinking there might be a fight if he does and would rather avoid it.  
   
“I was never sore at you,” Steve says, honestly.  
   
“I asked you to come,” Bucky says again.  
   
“I  _know_. Bucky, I’m not … it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”  
   
Bucky licks his lips slowly and considers him, staring at Steve for a moment with a frown twisting his forehead. Steve wants to kiss it away. Then Bucky moves, stepping into the room. “I did one thing wrong. I can fix it, though.”  
   
“What’s that?”  
   
Bucky goes to the radio on the cracked linoleum counter, and turns it on. It crackles to life, a melody Steve recognizes filling the room, although he can’t remember the name of the song. Bucky is better about that than he is.  
   
“Haven’t given my best guy his dance yet,” Bucky says, holding his hand out.  
   
Steve closes his eyes, frowning and letting his head hang. It should make him happy, that Bucky wants to uphold their tradition even though Steve had broken it tonight by not going out with him. Even though they can’t be what they want out in the real world, Bucky still always asks Steve to go with him. He wants Steve there, and tonight Steve had let him go alone.  
   
“C’mon,” Bucky pushes, reaching down for Steve’s hand and tugging him reluctantly in closer. Automatic, his arm goes around Steve’s thin waist, and Steve drapes his over Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky moves, slowly back and forth from foot to foot, rotating them gently in the middle of the room.  
   
“Wish we could do this somewhere else,” Steve admits, leaning in and tucking his head under Bucky’s chin. He smells like soap. “That’s all.”  
   
“One day,” Bucky promises, like always. “You’ll see.”  
   
He hums, singing softly along with the music –  _If I ever lost you how much would I cry? How deep is the ocean, how high is the sky?_ – as they sway.  
 

  
   
**2016**  
   
“I know this song.” Bucky frowns, staring at Steve’s iPod where it’s plugged into a portable speaker on the kitchen counter. He’s only known what an iPod is for about an hour. He’s still not entirely sure he understands how all those songs can fit on something so small.  
   
Steve looks up, at Bucky sitting at the island in his kitchen. “It’s an old one.”  
   
“It sounds different, though.”  
   
Steve puts the tablet he’d been holding down on the coffee table, and goes over to him. Bucky’s been here for less than a week. He hasn’t left Steve’s floor, and he knows Steve had asked the others to give them some space. Half of the people in this building have tried to kill Bucky in the very recent past, and vice versa, and Steve figured he’ll need a couple of days to settle in before he’s bombarded with the other Avengers. It’s a miracle that he’s here at all. They lost each other decades ago and Bucky’s entire world was erased from him in the years after. Even once he remembered who he was, he never for a moment thought he’d get this back.  Miracle isn’t a strong enough word.  
   
“It is different,” Steve says. “Recorded in the 70s by a jazz singer called Billie Holiday. I told Sam I used to like this song and he sent me this version.”  
   
Bucky nods and listens to it, eyes focused at a spot on the countertop in front of him. There are memories associated with it, but they feel blurry, lingering just out of Bucky’s reach. “Who did the original?”  
   
“Irving Berlin.”  
   
“Right.” Bucky nods again, thoughtfully. “Right, I remember.”  
   
Steve’s hand moves, like he’s about to reach out, but then thinks the better of it and drops it back down to his side. Bucky wishes he would. He doesn’t know, yet, what Steve wants from all this. He remembers, from the before, kissing and tangled limbs and squeezing hands. He remembers a smaller body wrapped around his, he remembers laughter and stupid fights and promising each other reckless, impossible things in the dark. He doesn’t know if Steve looks back on those times the same way. Steve is so different, now. They both are. For all Bucky knows, Steve has himself someone new to do all that with. For all he knows, Steve just brought him back in out of guilt and duty and obligation, not because he wants to hold Bucky in his arms the way Bucky’s been aching for since his memories came back. He spent so many nights when he’d been on the run staring at cut-out pictures of Captain America, remembering the gentle, fierce spirit underneath the cowl and shield and imagining an impossible future where he might get to hold Steve’s hand again.  
  
“You still listen to this stuff?” Bucky asks. He smiles as he says it, despite the melancholy invading his thoughts. He loves that Steve does.   
  
“Yeah.” Steve shrugs. “People keep giving me recommendations of newer music, but. I don’t know, I’ve found some good stuff but so far nothing I like more than what we used to listen to.”  
  
“In my living room,” Bucky remembers. “After school, before my parents got home from work.”  
  
“Yeah. And then in our own place.” Steve looks at him, and his expression goes kind of funny, but soft, like he’s remembering something nice. He walks over and this time, he does hold out his hand. “Dance with me?”  
  
Bucky frowns. “What?”  
  
“Please?”  
  
He doesn’t know what Steve is doing but he has always been helpless to say no to those blue eyes, so Bucky reaches out to take Steve’s outstretched hand, but Steve shakes his head and nods at Bucky’s metal arm instead.  
  
“Gimme that one.”  
  
Bucky swallows, and obeys, like he always does. The urge to do so had been carved so permanently into his skin, he’s not sure how long it will take before he unlearns that particular lesson. Steve takes the hand and pulls Bucky to his feet, moving them toward the middle of the room and then wrapping his other arm around Bucky’s waist. Instinctively, Bucky puts his flesh arm over Steve’s shoulders, the fingers of his metal hand still interlaced with Steve’s, and they sway, slowly back and forth, from foot to foot, to the slow rhythm of the music.  
  
The way Steve is looking at him is too much. Steve is too much, and that isn’t new. He always was. He’s too good, too kind and too loyal and too accepting and too forgiving, and it’s more than Bucky can handle. He thinks he can see love in Steve’s eyes, but he could be wrong, and he doesn’t deserve it either way. He bites the inside of his cheek to keep the swell of emotion in his chest at bay, and so he doesn’t have to look into those eyes anymore – eyes that have always seen right through him – Bucky closes his own and rests his forehead against Steve’s jaw. They’re pressed together from shoulders to knees as they move, and it feels intimate even though it’s innocent. Steve feels so different against him, than he used to. He’s taller than Bucky, now, and broader, rippling muscles under Bucky’s hands and a strong chest for him to lean into. Bucky would never had thought he’d like feeling small, but he does. It makes him feel sheltered, protected. He hasn’t felt that way in nearly a century.  
  
“Why are we doing this?” he whispers.  
  
“Why not?” Steve reasons.   
  
“Why am I the girl?”  
  
“Do you wanna switch?”   
  
Bucky thinks about it for a second and then shakes his head.   
  
“I like being close to you,” Steve murmurs.   
  
That’s too much as well, and Steve notices the way Bucky tenses in his arms.  
  
“Buck.”  
  
Bucky shakes his head again. It’s painful, how much he loves the man in his arms and how much he knows he isn’t worthy of Steve loving him back.   
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
Steve let’s go of the metal hand, and brings both of his up to cup Bucky’s cheeks. He presses a lingering kiss to Bucky’s downturned mouth. His lips taste just like Bucky remembers. “Please tell me.”   
  
Bucky wraps both arms around Steve’s waist, switching their positions even though he said he didn’t want to. He slides his real hand up under the back of Steve’s shirt, feeling warm skin under his fingertips, expecting momentarily for Steve to object and push him away, but Steve doesn’t. “You’re overwhelming sometimes.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Don’t be, you’re not doing anything wrong.”  
  
“How can I help?”  
  
“Keep dancing.”  
  
Steve smiles into the kiss he places on Bucky’s cheek. He drapes an arm over Bucky’s shoulders and pulls him in closer, reaching behind himself for the metal hand so he can take it again. Bucky watches as Steve’s fingers move over the wrist, and then takes the metal fingers in his. Steve does that a lot, since Bucky’s been here. Silently communicating that he accepts that the arm is part of Bucky now; that he isn’t afraid of it, even though sometimes Bucky still is. He watches as Steve’s thumb traces in an arc over the folding steel that covers the palm, and wishes so much he could feel it.  
   
Steve sings softly to him, lyrics murmured low and warm against the shell of Bucky’s ear –  _How far would I travel to be where you are? How far is the journey from here to a star?_ – and new memories flood into Bucky’s mind. They’re nice ones, and he doesn’t push them away.  
 

**Author's Note:**

> [come talk to me on tumblr if you want!](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/)


End file.
